Lillian Michaels

Glore Museum Assignment

SPED 738-99 Professor McCambridge
June 4, 2014
People with disabilities have a tendency to exhibit behaviors which
other people find shocking or frightening and which, many times, present an
actual risk of injury to themselves and others around them. The fear of those
behaviors is obvious in the photos from the Glore Museum. In them we see a
sort of evolution from practices such as trephination, or drilling holes in ones
head in order to release demons, to less invasive, yet equally unacceptable
treatment methods such as restraint and shock therapy of various sorts.
This evolution has coincided with greater understanding of physical, mental
and

emotional

disabilities

resulting

in

movement

away

from

institutionalizing individuals and attempting to eliminate their behaviors to

management of those behaviors by the least restrictive means possible. The
same paradigm shift has occurred in the education of children with special
needs.
Although some of the photographs are not dated, it appears that some
of the most appalling practices, such as trephination, took place well before
the 1900s, although things like clubbing were evidently used as late as the
1950s.

The idea that people had demons inside them which could be

released through a hole in the skull is a very frightening thought and

illustrates the lack of understanding of disabilities that people had at the
time that those procedures were used. It makes me wonder what was done
to an individual once the trephination failed to eliminate the behaviors

associated with their disability.

Likewise with the practice of trans-orbital

lobotomy which, shockingly, was used until the early 1970s.

The various methods of restraint which are depicted in the Glore
photos also illustrate a fear of individuals with disability and lack of
understanding regarding their behaviors.

While some of the restraint

methods, such as chaining people to walls, appear wholly barbaric, others,

like the torso restraint, seem to have evolved to the level of merely keeping
individuals from harming themselves or others. My guess is this evolution
came about through research and advances in medical and psychiatric
knowledge of the various disabilities presented.
As we learned from the video Celebrating 15 Years of IDEA, a similar
evolution has taken place in the education of children with disabilities. While
it was once acceptable practice to segregate and deny public education to
special needs children, research and increased understanding of the
characteristics of their disabilities has led to a much more enlightened
approach to their care and education. Just as it is no longer acceptable to
lock a mental patient in a Utica crib, society no longer tolerates the isolation
of children with disabilities from their peers and from opportunities to realize
their full potential.